Home Care In Pewee Valley, KY

The Eastern Wood-Pewee (Contopus virens) is a common summer resident across Kentucky.

Its most prominent namesake in Kentucky is Pewee Valley, in Oldham County, a beautiful community of old homes, open green space and big trees, along LaGrange Road (Ky. 146). First settled as a stop on the Louisville & Frankfort Railroad, the town became officially known as Pewee Valley, with the establishment of a U.S. Post Office there in 1856.

The Eastern Wood-Pewee is a member of family Tyrannidae, the tyrant flycatchers, one of the largest family of birds, with more than 400 species worldwide.

First identified in the scientific literature in 1760 by French zoologist Mathurin Jacques Brisson, based on a specimen collected in the Carolinas, the Eastern Wood-Pewee stands 5.3 to 5.9 inches tall, and weighs about .49 ounces. Wingspans range from 9.1 to 10.2 inches.

Both sexes look alike in size and coloration. Adults have light gray-olive upperparts, with olive-colored breasts. Each wing has two pale wing bars, and its flight feathers are long, giving the wingtip a slim and very pointed appearance. The upper part of the bill is dark, the lower part is yellowish.

In the summer woodlands, its calls — a plaintive series of whistled “pee-a-wee,” with a rising note at the end –is often heard before the bird is seen. That’s because the birds are usually somewhere in the leafy middle story of a tree, perched on a bare limb. They sing most often at dawn and dusk, and may continue singing quite late in the evening.

Range and Distribution

Across Kentucky, the Eastern Wood-Pewee is found in a wide variety of semi-open habitats, including mixed pine-hardwood forests in the Cumberland Plateau.

Understory removal, common in parks, farmlands and rural subdivisions, has created open space, which wood-pewees frequent.

In the Kentucky Breeding Bird Atlas, author Brainard Palmer-Ball Jr. wrote that the Eastern Wood-Pewee “seems to have adapted fairly well to changes in the landscape that have occurred since European settlement. Fragmentation of forested areas has created an abundance of edge habitat.”

The Eastern Wood-Pewee’s range in the Lower 48 states extends from Minnesota, south to east Texas, east along the Gulf Coast states from Louisiana to southern Georgia, north up the Atlantic Coast to Maine, and west through the Great Lakes states.

Wood-Pewees that nest in Kentucky depart for their wintering grounds in October, migrating at night. They winter in South America, and return to Kentucky in early May.

Food Habits

The Eastern Wood-Pewee captures small flying insects, darting out from a perch amid tree branches.

According to one study, they make an average of 36 flights per hour during the non-breeding season and almost twice as many, when feeding young.

They also eat insects found on foliage or on the ground, taking advantage of locally abundant prey during insect emergences. Their diet includes flies, bugs, butterflies, moths, bees, wasps, beetles, grasshoppers, crickets, stoneflies, and mayflies.

Wood-pewees also eat small amounts of vegetable matter, including the berries and seeds of dogwood and poison ivy.

Courtship and Nesting

Eastern Wood-Pewees are territorial during the breeding season.

Their territories range from about five to 20 acres in size. The male changes his singing patterns in response to other males. He also attacks other species that approach while he is singing.

Pewees are monogamous. The female incubates the brood while the male brings food. They are solitary during migration and on the wintering grounds.

Nest building begins in late May and extends into early June. Re-nesting, if their nest is lost to predation or storms, occurs in early August. Some pairs nest twice.

Eastern Wood-Pewees nest in trees and saplings. Their nests are typically 15 to 50 feet off the ground.

The nest is shallow and compact, a small cup made of woven plant material. and covered with lichens that provide superb camouflage.

The clutch size is typically two to four white or creamy eggs, with a wreath of brown or purple speckles.

The incubation period is 12 to 14 days, with the young staying in the nest for 16 to 18 days, while they are helpless, with sparse down feathers and closed eyes.

Conservation

The Eastern Wood-Pewee is a fairly common bird in Kentucky and of least conservation concern, but across its range in the Lower 48 states and southern Canada, populations have declined by about one percent per year for a cumulative decline of about 44 percent between 1966 and 2019, according to the North American Breeding Bird Survey.

This alluring bird, with such a distinctive song, is a native species that has fascinated Kentuckians since early settlement.

Principal Maryann Hayslip believes responsible, caring educators do their best work by meeting students where they are and helping them see their unique abilities to move forward. Her vision for education acknowledges both the struggles and the past successes of each student while keeping a positive approach for future growth. This unified positive approach promotes the extension of instruction into other areas to help develop the whole child.

Maryann Hayslip always knew she wanted to be a teacher; however, a dynamic Spanish high school teacher led her to pursue a master’s and doctorate degrees in Spanish Language and Literature. As a Spanish teacher, she created the first official Spanish program for parochial schools in central Illinois and was named the Illinois Outstanding Spanish Teacher in 2003.

Starting as a Spanish teacher at Saint Aloysius School, Mrs. Hayslip earned a master’s degree in administrative leadership and later became Assistant Principal. Saint Aloysius named her Principal in 2007. During Mrs. Hayslip’s tenure (13 years), NBRS has recognized Saint Aloysius School twice, the first time in 2014 and now in 2020. In 2017, Principal Hayslip was named the Distinguished Catholic School Leader for the Archdiocese of Louisville.

By expecting the best from herself, Principal Hayslip brings out the best in the school. She works tirelessly to build on the strengths of the school community and identifies areas needing improvements. Described as a passionate servant-style leader by educators, Principal Hayslip instills a strong school community, built on communication and collaboration, to focus on continuous improvement and the growth and development of every teacher and student. In addition to high standards and expectations, under her leadership, Saint Aloysius has embraced child-centered practices, prioritized social and emotional learning, and celebrated teacher collaboration.

Described as a life-long learner, Principal Hayslip is always looking for ways to build teacher capacity to impact students. For example, after hearing a presentation in 2019, Mrs. Hayslip led the school’s adoption of CALMA (Calm and Loving Minds Achieve) curricula as a school-wide social emotional and preventive behavioral curriculum approach. The curricula focus on the development of students’ self-regulation, awareness of the present moment, social skills, and focused attention. Principal Hayslip secured funds for the program and scheduled the trainings for all teachers, assistants, and administrators.

Understanding the importance of having all stakeholders involved in school-wide decision-making, Principal Hayslip promoted a school-wide social emotional Professional Learning Community (PLC). Initially, the PLC addressed everyone’s concerns and focused on every class implementing the curricula while monitoring difficult moments. Now, the PLC monitors the implementation and effectiveness of CALMA. Through the support of the Parent Teacher Organization, the school brought in wobbly stools, weighted vests, lap desks, chair kick bans as well as other items to address student needs. The faculty redesigned the school schedule so that all K-8 students had adequate down/recess time. The Parent Teacher Organization hosted information nights to share more about the program components and encourage adoption of the practices at home. Kentucky Educational Television recently filmed the school’s approach of CALMA. During the closing of the school due to COVID-19, Principal Hayslip ensured that students had continued access to the CALMA curriculum by creating social-emotional days, family learning days, and new weekly lessons taught by the counselor.

Always forward thinking, Principal Hayslip consistently looks for ways to facilitate the success of students, teachers, and the school. She communicates with families on a weekly basis and looks for ways on how to best engage everyone. Families always know Principal Hayslip is just an email away and always has time to help. At the center of Principal Hayslip’s very being is a love for students. Principal Hayslip’s positivity, sense of humor, and ability to be authentic and comfortable in her leadership style endears her to the school community.

Travel 20 miles east of Louisville and you will find a relic of Kentucky's connection to the Confederacy.

A granite obelisk marks Kentucky's 11,000-square-foot burial ground for Confederate soldiers on the west side of the Pewee Valley Cemetery.

A lone Confederate flag hangs limply on a flagpole in the quiet grounds off the town's Maple Avenue. Small headstones in the ground mark graves of about 300 men who lived in a nearby home for Confederate veterans in the early 1900s.

The soldiers' final resting place does not seem to be as controversial as Confederate monuments, like the one that was moved two years ago from University of Louisville's campus to a town about 40 miles away.

In fact, Pewee Valley's Confederate grave site lies relatively undisturbed, aside from the occasional grounds maintenance.

As the nation considers what to do with its Confederate statues, one possible solution is to move them to cemeteries, like the two statues of Confederate soldiers that were recently moved from downtown Lexington to the men's final resting place in Lexington Cemetery.

Consider this:Where will those controversial statues end up?

And this month, Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer announced that the city will move the statue of John B. Castleman — the former Confederate soldier who helped create Louisville's park system — from Cherokee Triangle.

While a final resting place hasn't been determined, Cave Hill Cemetery, which also has a Confederate section, has been mentioned as an option.

"Some people say, "Well, let's place them in museums and be relics of the past,'" said James Prichard, a manuscript cataloger at the Filson Historical Society. "Well, a cemetery is pretty much the same thing — it's the city of the dead."

But it doesn't make sense for Castleman's statue to move to Pewee Valley, said Donna Russell, publicist and historian for the Pewee Valley Historical Society. Castleman is buried in Cave Hill and she said there's not enough room on the property in Pewee Valley.

"We don't need the attention. We even talked about it ... but we don't want any controversy," said David Gleason, president of Pewee Valley Cemetery Company, the nonprofit that manages the western portion of the cemetery.

Prichard said it would be far less controversial to put a Confederate statue in a cemetery, "out of the public eye."

However, it's a tricky process, since many Confederate soldiers are known for other things besides fighting in the Civil War. For example, Castleman — who was pardoned by President Andrew Johnson and later served in the U.S. Army — helped create Central, Cherokee, Iroquois and Shawnee parks. He also founded the American Saddlebred Horse Association.

"Every city government is more or less faced with a situation they've never faced before so they're ... independently coming up with their own ways of resolving these controversies," Prichard said.

Related:Castleman statue isn't a traditional Confederate monument, mayor says

In 1902, the state approved the Kentucky Confederate Home at the request of a former Confederate officer who wanted a space for soldiers who could no longer care for themselves. Land for the soldiers' graves was established soon thereafter in an already-existing cemetery, according to the Pewee Valley Cemetery's website.

A fire destroyed the Confederate home in 1920, and while no lives were lost, the home eventually closed when its population dwindled, according to the Pewee Valley historical society's website.

"My mother and father were (in Pewee Valley) for many years, and they're in the cemetery now," said Bert Stoess, vice president of the Pewee Valley Cemetery Company. "And my grandfather's there and my mother's people are buried there."

Stoess, 88, grew up in Pewee Valley and said he's never heard a complaint about the Confederate site, which also has plots for civilians. His family is one of many to buried in the same area as the Confederate soldiers — and that's where he'll be buried too.

Russell also said she hasn't heard anything negative about the Confederate plot.

"Who's going to complain about something that's been here all these years?" she said. "... Those people deserve graves, they deserve to be undisturbed, they deserve to be at peace."

Russell said Confederate soldiers not only lost the war but their pensions as well.

Read this:Confederate memorials turn up faster than they can be removed a year after Charlottesville

"They were ineligible. Union soldiers got pension, Confederate soldiers did not. They were on the losing side," Russell said. "We had Confederates hanging out homeless, in bad shape, in street corners all over the South."

But, according to the United States archives website, Confederate soldiers and their widows in Kentucky were granted pensions starting in 1912.

The west cemetery is the final resting place of other historical figures, such as the founding fathers of Pewee Valley, and George Norman Gill, former Courier Journal reporter and publisher.

Across Maple Avenue and over a white fence is Pewee Valley Cemetery East, a section that used to be designated for African Americans that is managed by Walter Gales, another resident of the area.

In the original 1872 cemetery charter, Judge Peter Brown Muir allowed plots for African Americans — but those had to go in a separate space that was later cut off from the rest of the cemetery by a road in 1889, according to the historical society's website.

The Pewee Valley Cemetery Company jointly operated the east and west sides of the cemetery, but financial struggles in the 1980s caused managers of Pewee Valley to cede control of the eastern portion to the town's African American population, Stoess said. A small staff of community volunteers and inmates from the Kentucky Correctional Institution for Women help keep up the grounds on the both sides of the cemetery.

See also:Why is there a Confederate Memorial Day in Kentucky?

More than 13,000 individuals are buried on both sides of the cemetery, according to a list of plots by the Oldham County Historical Society.

The Confederate graveyard is on the National Register of Historic Places. People can still be laid to rest there as well as Pewee Valley Cemetery East. The last burial in the western Confederate cemetery was in the last 30 days, Gleason said.

In Kentucky, there are around 47 Confederate monuments and seven Union monuments, according to the National Park Service. While Pewee Valley's website states it is the only official Confederate cemetery in Kentucky, Lebanon National Cemetery hold the graves of more than 800 Union soldiers.

"It was a part of our community — it's nothing that we have to be ashamed of," Russell said.

Reach reporter Zahria Rogers at [email protected] or 502-582-4281. Follow her on Twitter @zahria_rogers.

Special to the Courier-Journal

On March 29, the Oldham County Historical Society with Oldham County Tourism sponsored a historical marker dedication of The Beeches, which was once the home of children’s author Annie Fellows Johnston (1863-1931). Johnston’s "Little Colonel" book series was based on real people and places in Pewee Valley. She purchased The Beeches in 1911 and lived there with her stepdaughter, Mary, until her death.

The dedication ceremony included presentations by Donna Russell, a local expert on Johnston and Sue Lynn McDaniel, associate professor and archivist at Western Kentucky University.The following are McDaniel’s comments from a luncheon that followed the marker dedication.

One of Annie Fellows Johnston’s characters identified Kentucky as her promised land. Kentucky proudly claims the author of the Little Colonel books as one of her own. Although born in Evansville, Indiana in 1863, Johnston would immortalize Pewee Valley, Kentucky in the hearts of numerous young readers for several generations.

In her autobiography, Johnston describes Pewee Valley: “I felt as if I had stepped back into a beautiful story of antebellum days, Back into the times when people had leisure to make hospitality their chief business in life, and could afford for every day to be a holiday.”

It must be quickly noted that Johnston’s work is a blend of reality and imagination, a quality for the historian which gives the work additional value. One biographer noted: “By drawing on her own idealized childhood and the scenes and people she loved, she created glamor about her characters which charmed her youthful readers.”

Nowhere is Johnston’s popularity and influence more evident than in her fan mail, housed at the Willard Library in Evansville, Indiana. Letters postmarked from across the United States, India, China and Japan testifies to her readers’ devotion. Several correspondents spoke of having all the Little Colonel books, “worn from use” and read numerous times. One little girl in Birmingham walked to and from school (instead of using the public bus) in order to save enough money to purchase the books.

Children formed Little Colonel clubs across the U.S. Having been inspired to do good works, some children wrote to Johnston that they had given the play “The Rescue of Princess Winsome” to benefit charities. A school of expression, utilizing a cast of 38 members, elaborate costumes and settings, played to a full house in one of Cincinnati’s largest downtown theaters. In Philadelphia, the drama met with similar success and additional funds were raised by raffling Little Colonel books.

In 1909, L.C. Page and Company marketed The Little Colonel Good Times Book in which girls could record their own pleasant happenings just as Mary Ware had done in three volumes of the Little Colonel series. By 1910, Mary Johnston, Annie’s stepdaughter, had designed paper dolls with likenesses to the real people.

In 1935, Shirley Temple brought the Little Colonel to the silver screen in a film which premiered in Louisville. In New York, designers quickly capitalized on the resurgence of the Little Colonel’s popularity with a line of Little Colonel fashions for girls aged 2 through 12. By April 13, 1935, the Louisville Herald-Post announced that factories were producing dresses, coats, hats, shoes, toothbrushes, handkerchiefs, jewelry, dolls, toys, watches, clocks and games.

Johnston told a gathering at an annual meeting of the American Library Association in Louisville:

“For over twenty years I have been receiving letters from girls of America, and because of these intimate self-revealing little confessions I have tried to put into my books a certain point of view — and that is a normal outlook on school-girl love affairs... I contend that a girl’s book of fiction should help her meet the problems that she is encountering right now in her school days, and my letters show me that the question of Prince Charming is one of the most vital she has.”

When Johnston attempted to conclude the series in 1907 with Lloyd’s wedding, 23 Boston children signed a petition asking for a sequel which told of Lloyd’s married life and children. Johnston chose instead to respond to the tremendous number of inquiries concerning a small period missing in her depictions of the Little Colonel’s adolescence and wrote Mary Ware: The Little Colonel’s Chum.

You can contact Nancy at [email protected].

OLDHAM COUNTY, Ky. — Developers of a new senior living community are proposing a “one of a kind” facility to Oldham County. If approved, Brighten Heights will be a senior living facility focused on preventing and reversing chronic disease and mobility challenges.

What You Need To Know

“We're excited to continue our legacy there, where we're from, and be a part of this greater opportunity within the market,” Edens said.

The historic piece of land in Pewee Valley has been the site of health and healing for nearly a century. Formerly home to the Pewee Valley Hospital in 1925, it was later turned into Friendship Health and Rehab before closing due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Brighten Heights developers are proposing a new project but hope to keep the same values. Susan Pena, chief strategy officer of Potentia Living, said it was no simple task.

“So, I first approached colleagues that were executive directors at senior living communities and started pitching this idea to them and they said, 'great idea, has it been done anywhere else yet?' In other words, no one really wanted to go first,” Pena said.

Eden, president of the Rural Educational Association of Kentucky, and Pena spending her career working in the industry came together to create the innovative senior facility focused on empowering active seniors.

Brighten Heights plans to monitor the patient's lifestyle choices.

“The things you do with your lifestyle, you can actually turn your good genes on and your bad genes off and vise versa. So it's all of those things, its food, its exercise, its sleep, its social connection, stress management, etc., etc. that leads to being able to live these healthy lifestyles,” Pena said.

The facility plans to have both independent and assisted living apartments as well as walking paths, a health and performance center, and educational programs to understand underlying causes of chronic diseases.

The senior living facility will focus on what they call the four pillars of positive change that include education, hope support, and choice.

“So the goal is to live long and die short. You want to live healthy and live with purpose, it’s hard to live with purpose if you don't feel good. Seniors have a lot to offer if they feel good enough to share it,” Pena said.

Although the pandemic has placed challenges on nursing homes and senior living facilities across the country, Brighten Heights hopes to overcome those and be the next chapter.

“We feel like given this opportunity, we’ve been able to step back and take a fresh look at this. Staffing is always a number one concern in operations. We feel like we’ll have that as a bit of a leg up in recruiting,” Edens said.

The Pewee Valley City Council will meet on April 5 at 7 p.m. for the second reading of the proposal and public hearing to decide the future of Brighten Heights.

If approved, the Brighten Heights facility is designed to combat COVID-19 or any virus with touchless sinks and doors as well as private rooms and bathrooms for those with chronic conditions.,

More information can be found online.

Editor's Note: A previous version of this story misspelled Katie Custer's first name as "Kayla" under the photos she provided. The error has been corrected. We regret the error.